


Omission

by SensationalSunburst



Series: PawPaw!Cor [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife fic, Aulea and Cor are bros, Canon-Typical Violence, Cid is a gruff old man no matter how old he is, Descriptions of Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:37:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SensationalSunburst/pseuds/SensationalSunburst
Summary: Cid's favorite story of Cor's teenage misadventures is quite different from what actually happened.OrIn which Aulea is the one to tell Cor what really happened.





	Omission

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was supposed to be 1000 words telling the complete story of the epic comedic tale that Cid tells the boys during The Welcome Party and the story that Cid told Cindy in the Guardian of All of Eos. 
> 
> It got a little out of hand.

“Always with that same, stupid story.” Cor huffed.

Aulea ran her fingers through the young marshal’s long hair, teasing the braids she’s woven into the chocolate strands out to fall around his face. He sat cross legged on the grass beneath her, framed by her legs as he leaned his back against the wooden bench in the center of her favorite garden. Fall was coming, cooling the oven Insomnia became in the summer, even in the Beyond, and the perpetually cold Queen was already donning thick, Lucian black sweaters. Already, most of the trees were turning, and the courtyard was a rainbow of red, yellow and green. A few leaves, plucked from their branches by the swift breeze, tumbled about the breezeway and the lawn to catch in the laces of his boots.

“I simply find it strange that they tell such a different version from what Regis told me.” Aulea said, making a grabbing motion just past Cor’s left shoulder. He automatically passed her the beer seated beside his knee, and the Queen took a long drag before handing it back.

“I don’t remember much of it.” Cor admitted as Aulea tilted his head back to restart her craft. She split his hair into three sections and began to twist the strands together.

“Regis’s story is far scarier.” She tapped his forehead once, and he crinkled his nose in response.

“I remember voretooths and then..”

“Regis said it started when you all decided to take up a few hunts to make extra cash for when you got to Accordo.”

“We? Regis decided to-”

“Let me tell the story, Kitty Cat!” Aulea said, tugging on his scalp to silence him.

Cor grumbled, but couldn’t hold his frown with Aulea’s fingers moving so soothingly through his hair.

 

* * *

 

“Of all the thick headed-”

The sound of rapid gunfire ripping through flesh was only championed by even louder cries as the pack of voretooths leapt back as one cohesive unit away from the small grouping of Crownsguard.

“Attempt to concentrate at the task at hand, if you’d please.”

“Fuck off, Weskham!” Cid scowled. He spun as he reloaded, the spent shells of his pistol clinking to the desert floor as he neatly avoided the claws of the nearest voresooth. The beast was immediately cut down as Clarus lunged forward, his broadsword slicing it cleanly in two.

“You must admit this is great fun!” Regis laughed. He danced backwards, dropping the shield he held before him in a hail of shimmering crystal lights to pull his polearm from the armiger.  Behind him, fifteen year old Cor Leonis caught one of the monsters mid pounce, hurling it to the dust at Cid’s feet with a flick of his katana.

“I must agree with Cid on this, we’re outnumbered and running out of potions after earlier.” He grunted, a quick step forward and a jab sent his blade through another beast, felling it in a single stroke.

Regis was smiling still, even as the voresooths tightened the circle around the group. Even as more picked their way through the desert terrain towards them. Even as the sun rose even higher in the sky, forcing him to squint past the soft rattling of the beads hidden amongst Weskham’s neat braids to find his next opponent.

Which is of course, when things went sideways.

 

What Regis hated the most about the youngest of his guard, was the fact that he never made a sound of protest. Never complained. Cid and Clarus cursed, loud and long, Weskham reported  injury, both physical and verbal, in the same, smooth tones as he described the weather. Cor however was tight lipped; he cut his teeth on pain, swallowed it whole and it was only that, his silence, that would give indication of anything afoul in the middle of battle.

So, when the kid went quiet as they were finishing up, Cid’s eyes automatically searched out the boy. He found him braced against a boulder on the edge of the ridge they had been backed against, doubled over with one hand wrapped loosely around his chest as his other shook against the stone with the effort of supporting his weight. His hat lay abandoned a few feet away, seemingly knocked from his head by the force of his gasping. Already, there was a small puddle of blood gathering on his left side and dropping in glistening crimson ribbons from under his palm onto his boots and into the red dirt below.

“ _Shit_ , Leonis.” Cid cursed, stalking over. He shook his hands out, chucking his pistols into the armiger as opposed to taking the time to strap them into his holster. The heat in his voice attracted the other’s attention, and the group descended upon Cor  in a chorus of scolding and sharp demands for a potion. Regis was closest, but as he stepped over the body of his nearest downed foe, his steps stuttered as Cor looked up at him.

“We’re in need of an antidote, Wes.” He said, holding out a gloved hand towards his friend expectantly. But as the seconds ticked by and Weskham checked his pack for the third time, Regis’s hand remained empty.  Regis glanced away from Cor’s pain stricken face to the rest of retinue.

Cor’s eyes darted to Cid, then Clarus, and the men frowned in twin expressions at the pinpricks of Cor’s pupils. Sweat was already beading along his temples, no doubt the result the fire that was voretooth poison, but it was the _sound,_ that cracking, guttural screech, that he made as the first spasms locked his muscles that kickstarted everyone back into motion.

“Leonis, look at me, you need to sit down.” Regis commanded, as always falling into his best impression of his father as he took charge of the situation, voice low and stern. The spasm passed, and Cor sagged and stumbled against the boulder, his white knuckled grip the only thing keeping him upright.

“Cor-” Regis cautioned, reading something in Cor's expression that the others couldn't see. He spread his hands as if trying to calm a wild animal and took several small, cautious steps forward. Cor flinched away, a tiny movement, but it sent alarm bells singing through Clarus’s mind and he had Regis’s name forming on his lips in warning before he realized he was moving.

Like lightning, faster than Clarus could lunge, Cor suddenly lashed out, flashing forward to shove at Regis’s chest with both hands. The prince didn’t make a sound as he tripped backwards, over his own feet and off the top of the ridge.

For a beat, there was silence.

“Leonis, what the fuck-”

“Regis!”

“Clarus, find him!”

“Reggie!”

Cid crossed the distance between himself and Cor in time to watch the kid collapse in a twitching, gasping heap to the dust. Cid dropped with him, catching his head just before he dashed it on the small rocks beneath him, and snatched the potion Weskham chucked his way in midair. The others were silent in their own panic as he glanced up, lips pulled between his teeth as Clarus and Weskham raced to the edge of the ravine.

Clarus dove to the ground, sailing over the edge with both arms extended, Weskham grabbed his legs to anchor him and caught him before his center of gravity plummeted over the edge.They were both shouting suddenly, but Cid could faintly hear Regis cursing, so turned his attention, satisfied that the prince was alive if he could take the Draconian’s name in vain, to the convulsing boy below him. Cid manhandled Cor to his back, dodging his flailing limbs and sucked in a breath between his teeth as he cracked the potion over the series of long, deep gashes flaying the flesh over his ribs. The skin, angry and red, slowly knit back together, covering the pale glimpses of bone revealed by the voretooth’s claws, drawing hitching, desperate gasps for Cor.

“We got him!” Clarus shouted over his shoulder.

“There… there was a ledge, thank heavens.” Weskham grunted as he worked with Clarus to haul Regis by his arms up and over the cliff’s edge. The trio collapsed in a breathless heap, with Regis chuckling nervously through his own shaking beneath them.

“I need another potion and an antidote. One ain't going to be enough.” Cid growled. He’d ripped the ruined Crownsguard coat from Cor’s shaking arms and used it to brutally press down on the still bleeding wound. “Fool boy.”

“Pr… Prince Regis. I-” Cor began mumbling and Regis poked his head up from under the mountain of Clarus’s limbs. He was dusty and flushed with adrenaline, but alive, and mostly whole save for the gashes in his hands from where he’d desperately clung to the rock face.  

“I-” Another convulsion rocked Cor’s frame, this time ripping a mangled scream from behind his clenched teeth.

“Antidote, Weskham, now!”

“We don’t have any!”

Cor gasped out the prince’s name again, fat tears collecting in the corner of his eyes. Regis darted over, alarmed by the uncharacteristic display and turned his eyes to stare helplessly at Cid.  

“Leonis, my friend, you’ll be alright.” Regis gestured for Cid to remove the coat and grimaced at the sight of the wound. Cid returned the pressure, and Cor gasped, kicking out as the venom coursing through his veins locked his muscles in momentary agony.

“-ali..ve?” Cor mumbled, a sigh loosening his shoulders as Regis grasped the boy's face in both of his hands.

“It will take more than that to end the line of Lucis.” Regis chuckled, but the smile dropped from his features as Cor was again gripped in a painful spasm. When his eyes opened again, pupils rapidly dilating, tears once again spilled down the sides of his face, until he seemed to register Regis’s face above him.

“Alive?”

“Short term memory loss is a symptom of voretooth poisoning.” Clarus explained, moving to stand behind Regis.

“We need those antidotes.” Regis said, but his voice was pitched low with worry.

“I shall go then. The rest of you return to the haven.” Weshkan said.

“I'll drive,” Clarus plucked the keys from Weksham’s belt and turned towards the car, “Weksham drives like my grandfather.”

As carefully as he could, Cid half dragged, half carried an increasingly delusional Cor back towards the haven they’d last spotted. Regis had attempted to help by supporting the boy’s other side, but the second that Cor lost sight of the kid, he’d begin to panic. The third time that he’d hiccupped a sob for his lost prince, Cid had demanded that Regis take point.

They’d settled in the shade of the glowing outcrop , and Regis had taken charge of Cor, claiming he had an idea of how to keep his temperature down. Cor’s lip had wobbled when Regis had moved to his side, but a cooling hand, glittering with ice had quieted his protests. Cid had quirked and eyebrow as Regis sat with his back to the rock, drawing Cor down with him to rest his back against his chest, and settled one hand on his forehead and the other over his chest. His hands were blue, pulsing with the ice magic he really didn’t have much control over, but Cid could just see where Regis was drawing it from the deposit shimmering behind him.

“I don’t know how long I can keep this up,” Regis shurgged in answer to Cid’s expression, “But it is all we can do for now.”

They’d lapsed into silence then, Cid with his back to prince on lookout, overlooking the mostly barren landscape. It was unspeakably hot, causing the small outcrop of buildings in the distance to shimmer like a mirage. Wes and Clarus had to go further than that though, as they’d only been a collection of abandoned sheds. The whole area seemed abandoned, the people and the remaining animals chased away by the pack of particularly vicious voretooths that they’d been sent to hunt.

“Leonis.”

Cid jerked to attention at the panic in Regis’s voice. He had a pistol drawn before he’d fully turned to look at where the prince was propped against the haven’s wall, arms still wrapped securely around Cor’s shaking form. Except, Cor was no longer shaking, in fact, he no longer appeared to be moving at all.

“Cor!” Regis  again, brushing back Cor’s hair away from his fevered forehead, but still, he remained limp and silent in his arms. Cid crawled over, his heart plummeting to his stomach, as he registered the boy’s half lidded, vacant eyes. His arms were splayed limply at his side, staring unseeingly at the cloudless sky above from within his ashen face.

“Cor.” Cid barked, reaching out as soon as he was in range to shake the boy’s boot.

Cor didn’t so much as flinch.

“...Bahamut’s balls, is he breathing?!” Cid demanded.

Regis slipped his hand from Cor frantically combing the boy’s sweat soaked hair away from his forehead to hover his fingers just in front of his nose then down to press against his neck. Cor’s head rolled limply to the side without his hand to support it.

“He’s…he’s not.” Regis whispered. Cid watched as the color drained from the prince’s face, and his hands began to tremble against where he still had his fingers curled in Cor’s vest. Cid lurched forward, the first aid briefing they received just before they set off echoing through his mind. He pulled Cor from Regis’s unresistant arms and all but threw him on his back before starting mouth-to-mouth.

Seconds crawled by, and Cid cursed every time he pulled back from Cor’s bluing lips to press his ears against his mouth. Above him, Regis was silent, hands clawed on his kneecaps.

Finally, a sharp huff of breath caught Cid's attention as he pulled back, and watched as Cor’s pupils shrank and grew as he took another uneven, shallow breath. A strangled sound drew itself from the back of Cor’s throat but his expression remained blank. Even as Regis placed his hands on his cheeks to peer into his face, there wasn’t an ounce of recognition in his eyes.

“Where the fuck is Wes?” Cid growled, he settled next to the prince and placed his hand against Cor’s cheek to scowl at the fire still burning through him.

“I don’t… it should have just worked it’s way out right? Why-”

“He’s a kid, Reg.”

“He wouldn’t be here if that were the case.” Regis snapped, snatching Cor up against his chest. Cid’s stomach knotted as the kid flopped bonelessly in Regis’s arms, legs tangling together as Regis shifted him to look down into his face. Cor’s pupils had grown, drowning the blue of his eyes, and Regis again pressed his fingers to where Cor’s pulse fluttered faintly in his neck.

“He’s a goddamn ch-”

“Cid, catch!” Clarus shouted from behind him and Cid turned in time to pluck the characteristic green vial from the air just before it smashed into Regis’s stunned face. Cid carried the momentum of the catch with him as he smashed the vial against Cor’s chest, relief loosening fear’s grip on his heart as the green potion shattered, shimmered and seeped into his skin. Immediately, Cor’s pupils shrank, again revealing the light blue of his eyes, just before they slipped shut. Clarus appeared above him, and snatched up Cor’s hand to wrap his lifeless fingers around an elixir and crush it between his hands. Regis lightly pressed his hand against the bandage wrapped tightly around Cor’s chest and sighed as he felt the unmistakable cool tingle of magic as it sought out the wound.

“What the hell took you so long!” Cid rumbled, pressing his hand to Cor’s forehead. Even now, he could feel the heat receding from his skin as the antidote began to purge the toxin from his system. Against his wrist, his breathing evened into some semblance of normal and Cid wordlessly bundled Cor into his arms and stood, reliving Regis of his guard. Regis accepted Clarus’s hand and got to his feet, shaking out his legs and taking a moment to breathe, hands set firmly on his knee caps.

“You try finding an elixir around here.” Clarus frowned, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“We’ll discuss this later.” Regis commanded, rolling his shoulders as he stood to his full height. “For now, let’s get the hell out of here.”

“He’ll require another antidote in twelve hours.” Weskham said, leaning around Clarus to peer at where Cor’s face was tucked into Cid’s neck to pant into the collar of his jacket.

 

* * *

 

“I remember waking up in Hammerhead.” Cor said, tilting his head back as Aulea finished off the latest of the series of braids she'd been working into his hair. His eyes had slipped shut against the sunlight reflecting off the Citadel's windows, so he was startled when Regis suddenly spoke up from next to him.

“We had to give you three more antidotes. Cleaned out our funds for a while because Weskham just bought out the pharmacy they found.” Regis said, sighing in nostalgia.

“That hunt was a terrible idea anyway-”

“It would have been fine-”

“I still have the scars!”

“No, you don't. Besides, didn't even use a Phoneix Down on you, it was fine.”

“If Wes had been five minutes late we would have buried your little ass in the desert.” Cid grunted.

Cor opened his eyes to narrow them at Cid, standing just in front of him.

“You must have really scared them.” Aulea interjected, tapping the top of Cor’s head to indicate that she was finished. He scooted over as Regis moved to take his place, and Aulea automatically ran her fingers through her husband's raven hair.

Cid scoffed, but Regis shrugged, eyes fluttering shut at his wife’s ministrations.

“My poor boys.” She sighed. “Cid, dear.”

“Whatchu want.” But there was no acting gruff in the face of Aulea’s peaceful smile. “Would you be kind fetch us some more beers from the kitchen? The pilsner? Maybe one of the stouts?”

“Yeah, yeah.” The mechanic grumbled, turning to stroll towards the kitchen.

“Thank you!” She called brightly.

“He’s only nice to you.” Cor said.

“Ah yes, well, one of us has to be charming.”  She smiled.

“A terror.” Cor and Regis said in unison.

Aulea only laughed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to drop a comment below or chat with me at the new sensationalsunburst.tumblr.com!


End file.
